The promotional release was a Miramax production meant for
Academy members. The score was originally to be released commercially
by Varèse Sarabande on December 24th, 2002, but the label cancelled
the album and then rescheduled it for March 4th, 2003.

The Quiet American: (Craig Armstrong) The 2002
remake of the classic bittersweet tale of The Quiet American
slipped under the radar, with only Michael Caine's superior lead
performance gaining widespread recognition. Set in 1952 Vietnam, this
cinematic recreation of the famous novel of the same name conveys the
intriguing love triangle between two Western men and a beautiful
Vietnamese woman in the surroundings of opium, betrayal, and the French
Indochina War. Anyone familiar with the plot of The Quiet
American knows that there exists no happy ending, and that stark,
melancholy environment carries over to the music for the film. The
project teamed composer Craig Armstrong once again with director Phillip
Noyce, with whom Armstrong had collaborated to create the chillingly
haunting score for The Bone Collector a few years earlier. In an
interview, Michael Caine stated that he had told Noyce that he would
portray the role of the veteran English journalist in The Quiet
American only if Armstrong was hired to write the score for the
film. There is no doubt that the composer's career was headed in the
right direction in the early 2000's. The former string arranger for
Madonna wrote several very strong scores on his own in the years
surrounding The Quiet American, nearly sweeping the awards scene
in 2001-2002 with his coordination and composition of music for the
super-popular Moulin Rouge. Armstrong took the assignment of
The Quiet American with vigor, studying over one hundred hours of
traditional, native Vietnamese music in order to gain knowledge about
the authenticity that would be needed to represent the concept.

The resulting sound of the score is a combination of
several native specialty instruments, a light background choir, and
three primary elements: the full orchestra, Armstrong's usual electronic
rhythmic devices, and the haunting performances of a single Vietnamese
female voice. The orchestra and solo female voice provide nearly all of
the majesty to the work, while the electronics, though true to
Armstrong's style, are somewhat of a curious choice for inclusion. It is
a thematically rich and rhythmically smooth composition, with a
compelling love theme worthy of the best cultural dramas in modern
cinema. The rhythms and themes are simple in construct, but they are
performed with strong harmony by a bass-heavy string section,
contributing to a fullness of sound for the recording. The female voice
is recorded with a slightly distant resonance; the wet mix of her
contribution assists her voice in blending into the orchestra during
both her wordless and seemingly lyrical performances (if she is
performing lyrics, then they are in a non-English language, adding even
more depth to the romanticism of the music for western ears). The mixing
of the orchestra and vocals produces a vibrant, yet slightly distant sound,
assisting to indicate the time period of the action on the
screen. Listeners will recognize the consistent use of the piano from
Armstrong's other scores, and shades of The Bone Collector
especially expose themselves when the piano performs in unison with a
light choir. The piano figures from The Bone Collector make a
direct transition here, with a distinctly related ten-note phrase
punctuating the thematic sequences in The Quiet American with
nearly identical effect. Spine-tingling high strings, as usual, perform
during scenes of extreme emotional turbulence.

New to the ears of Amstrong's collectors were the
sparingly applied, but necessary use of the Sao flutes, Nhi fiddles, and
other native instruments. They sometimes blend in with the electronic
rhythms he employs to propel the action (or other busy) scenes in the
film. The synthetics are similar in style to those heard in The Bone
Collector as well, and if there is any criticism of the score for
The Quiet American, it revolves around the use of those modern
rhythms for a film set in 1952. At their strongest, however, those
pleasant rhythms sound surprisingly similar to the ones heard in the
middle portions of David Arnold's Tomorrow Never Dies, and
Armstrong never loses the orchestral and vocal dominance over those
rhythms. In cues such as the superb "Death in the Square," Armstrong
turns to the authentic sound of native drums to carry the rhythm. The
film ends with a more modern song variation of the Vietnamese female
vocals (written by Armstrong and performed by Hong Nhung, too), and the
piece fits well with the slightly defiant, bittersweet attitude of the
score. A solo piano rendition of the theme is a more typical Armstrong
inclusion, inserted into the middle of the listening experience on album
here. The score was supposed to be released on commercial album by the
Varèse Sarabande label on December 24, 2002, but that street date
was cancelled. Armstrong personally had it released, however, as a "for
your consideration" promotional product aimed at an Academy Award
nomination in lieu of the commercial album. Varèse eventually
rescheduled the commercial album's debut for March, 2003. The two albums
feature identical contents, including all of the best, uninterrupted
beauty of Armstrong's strong score for the darkly dramatic tale. ****@Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:

For Craig Armstrong reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.73
(in 11 reviews)and the average viewer rating is 3.42
(in 44,828 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.